November 2021: COP26

My New Automatic Gate

It is fitting that for the global climate meeting in Glasglow this November 2021 that I write about my automatic gate. My new automatic gate started as posts to its Twitter hashtag. The driveway that leads to the vineyard house splits into a Y at the top of a climb, one branch going to the house and the other branch going further uphill to the garden and studios. Every so often a tourist drives up here or an Amazon delivery van gets stuck looking for my neighbor. So, after tearing out a line of split-rail fencing in another part of the property, I took one of the longest rails and simply set it across the driveway. No hinges, no swivels, no motors, no electricity: the rail must be lifted by hand.

The original single rail gate. To open or close it you automatically walk over and lift it into place.

There is something about simplicity as evident in the single rail that obviously has been placed there. It says “I’m a gate. Do not go further.” And the old fence rail works! It cost nothing. And I can reuse the old fence that got torn down. But it is not convenient – I have to walk my fat ass over there and lift it open or lift it closed.

This is in complete contrast to the real automatic gate at the foot of the driveway on the busy Silverado Trail. There we built a handsome stone wall and sliding gate connected to an automatic gate opener. It worked by sensing when a car or vehicle came close but then its sensing started to break down. Sometimes it didn’t open and that whole convenient thing went away. And then the gate started opening randomly, a dozen times a day. It was freaky. No one was around, no car had approached on the driveway, it just opened and closed randomly, wearing down the battery and adding wear and tear to the ghostly device.

It was maddening. I obsessed about it and worried about it and worried that our neighbor who shared the driveway wouldn’t be able to open it. What if it failed and just stopped working while I was away? I replaced every single component in search for the hay-wire or worn sensor that made the gate randomly open and had a collection of spare parts in preparation for my next automatic gate hell. 

The convenience of not getting out of the car yet having a blockade between our vineyard house and the ever curious tourists trying to find secret wineries, was lost. My New Automatic Gate was not working.  One day, exasperated, I turned it off, opened the gate, unplugged it, and left the gate open. That was five or six years ago. The driveway to our vineyard home has remained open ever since and the tourists and the idle explorers still drift in on Saturday afternoons but I don’t worry about it any more.

Why do we do that? Why do we need, want, buy, so many items of convenience that quickly break down. The world is oversaturated with them. A toaster that sprays butter on the bread. Electric gadgets that talk. Electric gates that taunt you by staying halfway open. Convenience drives consumption as it kills our climate with a bunch of useless junk. All that convenience needs an energy grid. And right now that grid is supplied by utilities that burn carbon.

My automatic gate hashtag has a message: Convenience = Consumption = Climate Change.

The new gate is amazing. Look what happens when you add a rock to my human-powered gate:

The added stone gains almost a foot in height.  

You can dip under the gate while walking about and even push the wheelbarrow under without moving the rail. I thought it was brilliant because I am constantly moving about with the wheelbarrow while raking leaves and pruning. I don’t think my old electric automatic gate, nor any make or model I have ever seen, can allow the owner to pass under without opening or closing the gate itself. 

Or consider the prohibitive gate language of the X version. Adding a second rail makes a big statement: No Access.

There’s nothing like an X to announce intent.

For vacation mode there’s the double gate:

Am I glad I didn’t chop these up into firewood.

The vacation mode looks a little funky but it really does the job when we’re not at the vineyard house. It stops the random tourists, the mis-delivery vans, and the winery seekers.  The post on the left sits in a cinder block and there’s room for a person to pass on the far left. If I built an automatic system it would cost far more than $5K for the convenience and its constant use of electricity from carbon-burning PGE.

So during COP26, when you hear inspirational prescriptions to counter climate change, remember there are things you can do, too, right now as individuals, not massive governments. You can get your fat ass out of the car and go do something, like open the gate.